


I smell heartbreak on my hands

by nathen-millers (TheBoxer)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Follows canon until the end of first season, Multi, everything is black and white until you meet your soulmate verse, or so they say
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 17:24:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2200488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBoxer/pseuds/nathen-millers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Au where everything is black and white until you meet your soulmate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Monty could always see color. 

He always saw the blues, the reds. He didn't ever see just black and white. 

His parents were concerned, they always thought that meant something was wrong, like he couldn't love, like he wouldn't ever find love. 

But Monty didn't think that. When he was young, he thought it meant that he loved everyone, that he wasn't meant just to love one person but everyone. 

When he met Jasper, he thought that maybe, just maybe, it was just a fluke that he could always see color, and maybe Jasper was his soulmate.

But Jasper never saw color, in fact Jasper always was looking for his soulmate. Always seeking out new people, forever hopeful that he would meet them and see the world the way Monty did.   
If only he knew. 

In the white room at Mount Weather, Monty promises himself he will tell Jasper the truth if he ever gets out of here.

When Clarke appears in the room across the hall, he almost starts crying because now no one will save them. He mouths names across through the windows, when he reaches Jasper's, Clarke nods her head, meaning he was alive. Relief flooded through Mony's body. 

But who even knows what that meant anymore.

*  
Jasper saw color the first day on earth when he met Octavia. It washed the trees in green and the sky in blue. And for the first time ever, he understood how Monty saw the world. 

He felt a smile break out onto his face, he waited for her returning one. 

It didn't happen, she just kept talking to the others. 

Jasper knew this was possible. Sometimes, one person's soulmate wasn't the others. It happened on the Ark only a handful of times. But before the war, on earth, it was much more common. But Jasper never thought it would happen to him. 

He still loved Octavia, he saved her from the river monster without a second thought because of it. 

But it still hurt that she would never feel the same way.

When Jasper woke up in the white room, he started crying. Octavia wasn't in the dropship when the ring of fire happened, she wasn't dead because he still saw color and when your soulmate died, things went back to black and white. But he had no idea where she was or if she was safe. Jasper cried for Monty, who was most likely dead. He cried for Bellamy who burned alive in the fire. Most of all, he cried because for the first time time in his life, he was all alone.

*  
Raven saw color for the first when she was 13, that's when she met Finn. 

She doesn't even remember how they met or what they talked about. All she remembers is the way color flooded her vision. Washing over Finn and everything around them with color. 

She remembers hearing her gasp then she hears Finn's and just for a moment everything is perfect. 

Things aren't so perfect now. 

Finn doesn't seem to care about soulmates anymore. When she first came down, he hid it. Looking back, she sees all the looks he gave Clarke. She knows she saw them before but she ignored them because she and Finn were soulmates, and they were going to be together, he was just having doubts which was fine everyone had doubts sometimes. 

She never thought she would doubt Finn. 

But she started to. She couldn't believe it.

Actually she could believe it. Once she landed on earth, soulmates seemed like such a trivial thing to worry about. It didn't seem so important. Most of the others couldn't seem color, it didn't seem to bother them.

So she broke up with Finn, and for the first time since she was 13, she was alone, she didn't cry though. Because if Raven couldn't control what happened to her, she was going to control her reactions to it. And she would not cry, not for herself, not for Finn, not for anyone. 

When she woke up in the room at Mount Weather, she was able to move her legs and walk. But her vision was black and white again. Raven began sobbing. She pressed her hand against her mouth, trying to stop herself, but then she realizes no one will see her cry. So she gives in and lets herself sucum to the tears. 

*  
Octavia saw color when she met Lincoln. When she was on the ground, bleeding, and he saved her. 

She thought she was her happiest when she stepped out of the dropship on to earth. She was wrong when the world was colored, when she saw Lincoln's face in color, that was the happiest she had ever been. 

After she got Lincoln out of camp, she told him about soulmates on the Ark and how she had always seen black and white. 

He told her that the first grounders were like that too. But over the years, the black and white sight until meeting your soulmate faded until it was nothing more than a story.

Lincoln smiled at her though. He said he felt the same. It made Octavia so happy.

When she told Bellamy about how Lincoln was her soulmate, she expected he would be happy for her. But instead it made him angry. 

He yelled, cursed, and almost cried. He said what if he was lying? What if he was just trying lure Octavia into telling him everything about their camp? Just so he could kill all of them?

Octavia slapped him. Because how dare he question her feelings, how could he look at her and see all her feelings right on her face and still question her feelings for Lincoln.

She loved Bellamy. But in that moment she loved Lincoln more. 

When Bellamy told her to go with Lincoln, that he needed her to live, she knew what he was saying. 

He understood, and he accepted it. And he was ready to have someone else to protect her, even though she really didn't need someone to protect her.

And in that moment, she wished, not for the first time, that her life was different. That Lincoln and Bellamy could actually meet and talk, that she could live and love Lincoln and still be close to Bellamy. That she didn't have to choose between loving Lincoln and staying with her brother. 

Because in that moment, with Bellamy saying may we meet again, she loved both of them equally. 

*  
Finn wasn't sure if he stopped loving Raven or just stopped caring about soulmates. 

He once loved the idea of soulmates, of having that one person that was perfect for you, who loved you without a doubt and you loved them without a doubt. 

And, for a long time, that was Raven. When he got arrested and was in the skybox, she came and visited as often as was allowed. 

Finn loved her, he did. She was his soulmate but he no longer thought that was it for him. 

When Finn went to the ground and met Clarke, he thought that maybe the system was flawed. That maybe Clarke was his real soulmate, or that he had two soulmates. He didn't know and he didn't really care. 

He wasn't exactly shocked when Raven broke up with him. He knew she saw the looks he gave Clarke. He knew she saw it. It wasn't like he didn't love Raven, he did. But he loved Clarke too. 

When he told Clarke he loved her, she didn't say it back. When he asked if she saw color when she met him, she said no. 

Finn wasn't sure what he should do next. He thought that Clarke would have loved him back. That maybe she would have saw color when she met him and just didn't tell him. 

Deep down, he thought that if she did see color when she met him, it would justify everything he did to Raven. That everything would be ok as long as he was her soulmate. 

He should have know nothing on earth was easy. 

When he runs away from Clarke and toward Bellamy, he knows it's the end. He and Bellamy start running. They get separated.   
He tries to get away from the fire, in the end, he wasn't fast enough. 

When the fire consumes him, his last thoughts are wondering if Clarke will miss him and if Raven will ever forgive him for taking her color vision with him.


	2. Chapter 2

Finding her soulmate never was something Clarke really cared about. 

It wasn't like she didn't care about finding love, it just wasn't something that seemed important to her once she was older. After the age of ten, she stopped looking. She just lived her life, without really thinking about it. 

Once she found out about the Ark, soulmates seemed like a stupid, childish, thing to care about. When her father was floated, Clarke knew she would never care about seeing color because she would never see her father in color. She would never know the color of his eyes or the color of his hair. 

When she was arrested, and she for sure thought she would never see color, she felt bad for her soulmate, whoever that was, that they would never see colors. 

She felt bad for herself that she would never be able to see the colors of her paintings. 

-

When the dropship landed on earth, and Clarke fought her down to the door, and said, "Stop, the air might be toxic." 

And he replied, "If the air is toxic, we'll be dead anyway." The world was suddenly flooded in color. 

Her eyes went wide as they took in the silver metal of the dropship, she didn't even hear the door open. When she walked out the door and saw the green trees, the blue sky, the yellow flowers, she almost wept with joy. 

"It's so beautiful," she whispered. 

To anyone else, she was just in awe of earth. But it was more than that. 

It was the way all the trees were a different shade of green and it was the way she could see yellow flowers everywhere. 

How could she ever thought she could live without this? 

She was too wrapped up in soaking in every color, she forgot about the soulmate part. 

Clarke looked around for him, she finally found him standing off to the left with his sister. 

She stared at him for a moment, he didn't look back. 

She turned away. 

-  
It was ironic, that the happiest moment in her life should have been her saddest. 

It was clear in that moment that she wasn't his soulmate. Clarke couldn't bring herself to care then. 

Because how could she care about love when she could have these wonderful colors instead. 

She just wished she could talk to someone about all the colors. 

-  
For a while, she was very glad she wasn't Bellamy's soulmate, mostly because he was an asshole. 

She went on living life, just like before. She slept with Finn, because he was lonely and sad and so was she. 

Because sometimes, it hits her. That the one person she was meant to be with wasn't meant to be with her. 

When Raven came down, she had a hard time looking Finn in the eye. She couldn't believe what he had done, that he had taken something so rare for granted. 

-

She realizes that Bellamy means more to her than she thought when Dax tried to kill him.

She didn’t hesitate when she picked up the gun.

Afterwards, when Dax was dead, she kept saying, “You’re ok.” 

She first thought that she was reassuring him, but when she kept saying it and thinking it, she knew she was reassuring herself. Reassuring herself that he was alive, that he wasn’t dead. 

Part of Clarke thought that she cared so much because she didn’t want to lose the colors. 

When he says softly, brokenly, “I’m a monster.” she almost wants to sob. Because this wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he was her soulmate and she wasn’t his. It wasn’t fair that he thought of himself as a monster. It wasn’t fair that she let him torture the grounder, it wasn’t fair that they had to be the leaders and make all these decisions. 

So she tells him she forgives him, because she does. She tells him she needs him because it’s true, she can’t do this on her own, nor does she want to.

When Jaha pardons him, she wants so desperately to grab his hand. She wants laugh and grin and kiss him. 

Instead, she gives him a small smile, and watches as he returns it.

-  
After that failed meeting with the grounders, Clarke begins to notices things.

Bellamy is different toward her, he listens to her, he doesn’t argue with her over every little thing. More often than not, he agrees with her. 

When Clarke saw the exodus ship exploded, and she fell to her knees, he was there. He pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. He led her back to his tent and sat her on the bed. 

“My mother,” she whispers.

He shushed her, he kneels in front of her.

Clarke’s mind felt so very far away, that’s probably why she says, “I’ll never see her in color.”

She looked up at Bellamy, she felt tears well up in her eyes, “I’ll never know what she looks like, not really. I’ll never see any of my family in color. She was the only person I had left, I am all alone now.” 

His dark brown eyes were sad, he doesn’t tell her it’s going to be ok, because it isn’t going to be ok, not for a long time. Instead he says, “You aren’t alone, you have me. And Octavia and Jasper and Monty, hell, you even have Raven. You'll never be alone, Clarke.”

He pushes himself up onto the bed and pulled her into a hug. She leans her head against his shoulder. She lets herself return the hug. 

And while his arms are around her, and she is breathing in his familiar scent, she lets herself imagine that she could always have this, that someday he would care for her in the a same way she cared for him. 

-

She sees his relief in his eyes when she takes the cup from Murphy. She’s relieved that he is ok, he didn’t look so good when he was brought in. She remembers all the blood he was coughing up. She offers the cup to him again, this time he takes it. 

“You feeling better?” he asks, his voice deeper than normal.

She smiles softly, “Yeah,” she says. 

His eyes seem so much brighter, like for once the weight of the world wasn’t on him, “That’s good.”

She continues to smile at him, and he smiles back for a moment before he clears his throat and says, “You seen Octavia?”

Clarke nods, “She was up all night taking care of people, Murphy gave her a break.”

He frowns, “Don’t tell me you trust him now.”

Clarke shook her head, “Trust? No. But I do believe in second chances.” 

He looks away from her, his eyes turning to the floor. Clarke sighs and moves on to the next person. 

-

Clarke wishes they could have left. She knows that wishing is stupid and childish and they don’t have time for that. But she wishes it were possible.

She wishes that she could at least keep an eye on Bellamy during the fight, but she has to help Jasper with the ring of fire. 

When she comes out of the dropship and sees him, she yells, “Bellamy, run!” 

She knows that he can’t make it in time. She knows it’s over when he starts fighting that grounder. Finn grabs a gun and runs over to Bellamy. 

She wishes in that moment she couldn’t see color because all she sees is red. 

All she wants is for him to look at her, for one last time. Even just for a second, so she could see his eyes, one last time.

Just look at me, she thinks desperately. 

When Miller grabs her, and tugs her back to the dropship, she wants to scream. He still hasn’t turned his head once toward her. She should have known that the one thing she wanted him to do, he wouldn’t do it.

-

When she awakes in the white room, she panics when all she sees is white. And for a terrible minute, she can’t breath, she can't think because Bellamy is dead, he is dead. 

Then she sees the painting, the blues, the yellows, and she can breath again. 

Until she looks across the hall and sees Monty and the Mount Weather sign.   
She can't breath for a different reason now. 

-

Mount Weather is a strange place. 

Every day, three times a day, someone brings her food. They all dress in hazmat suits, Clarke can't see their faces. They never speak or acknowledge her. 

At first, Clarke didn't talk to them. But four days after she awoke, she starts to ask questions. 

"Who are you? What do you want from us?" She asks every day. 

They never answer. 

Until one day, when it's her second meal of the day, a man not wearing a suit walks in. 

He is tall and slim, he has greying hair, and bright green eyes. 

Clarke stares at him for a long time. 

"Hello Clarke, how are you feeling?" He asks as he sets down her tray on her bed. 

She stiffened her spine, "I am fine." 

"That's good, I am glad to hear it. How is your vision? Any changes in the intensity of colors?" 

Clarke frowns, "No, what are you talking about?" 

The man looks at her curiously, "We weren't sure how the medicine would take since you are so much older than usual. Not to mention the fact that you came from the Ark. But it worked well on the others, specifically the girl who was injured, Raven something. It worked wonders for her. Her color sight came back in just two days." 

Clarke swallowed sharply, "I lost my color vision?" 

"We think you only lost it for a day, maybe two," he explains cheerfully, "But since the medicine was a success, you won't have to worry about that anymore." 

Clarke felt sick. Her stomach clenched uncomfortably. Her palms felt clammy. She then threw up her first meal all over the white floor. 

-

The man, she learns, is named Christopher. He says he is a doctor, but to Clarke, he feels more like a scientist. 

He comes to see her every day. He talks about how they had to keep her in quarantine because they weren’t sure exactly what she and the others had been exposed to. He tells her about Raven’s injury and how her recovery is going. He tells her how they sure the medicine would work, but they decided to try anyway.

Clarke never asks who they are. 

She does ask about the color vision. 

“We haven’t had anyone born without color for about 57 years, and before that, we developed a medicine that was able to fix whatever genetic abnormality that caused us to be born without color vision,” he explains, “I am one of the last of our people to be born without color, everyone younger than me is born with normal vision.”

Clarke frowns, “What about the soulmate part?” 

Christopher laughs, “Does the Ark still believe about the soulmates? I thought they would have advanced past that by now.”

“What do you mean?” she asks.

“Clarke, the being born without color vision, was just part of human evolution. And when you did begin to see color, that wasn’t because whoever you met was your soulmate. It was just because of brain chemistry and hormones your body released in that moment. The hormones released just finally triggered your color vision,” he said.

“So the whole soulmate thing, is something our ancestors made up?”  
“In their defense, it made sense. No one bothered to try and look past what they thought was obvious,” he says.

Clarke nods. 

-

It goes on like that.

Christopher would come every day, usually around her second meal, they would talk, or more accurately, he would talk. 

Clarke would listen, she would make notes in her head about the things he would say. She sometimes asked questions, but more often than not, she would just listen.

Once Christopher left, Clarke would lay on her bed. She let her mind wander, she used to think about the others in Mount Weather but yesterday Christopher allowed her to see Monty. It was just for a few moments but Clarke learned that Monty gets a visitor too. 

It makes her worry.

She thinks about Bellamy a lot. She thinks of how he isn’t her soulmate, if what Christopher said is true. She thinks about how much she misses Bellamy, and what he would think if he were here with her. 

He wouldn’t like Christopher, Bellamy was ruled by his emotions and passions, Christopher was always so calm and almost indifferent. Bellamy wouldn’t like how Christopher thought that they were so much better than the people of the past.

She wonders what she will do without him. 

-

“I want to leave,” Clarke says to Christopher 37 days after she woke up. 

Christopher looks at her, “Why?” he asks calmly.

She looks at her bare feet, “Because I don’t belong here, none of us do. Because I know you aren’t telling me the whole truth.”

“Clarke, you realizes that once you leave, you can’t come back. We risked too much by saving you all in the first place, we can’t do it again.” 

You weren’t saving us, she thinks. She knows that Christopher, and probably the other Mountain Men, think that they are saviors, that the 100 owe them their lives. 

“I know,” she says, “I also want to know if any of my people want to leave as well.”

Christopher nods, “I will let them know.”

He leaves after that. 

\- 

He doesn’t come back for three days.

On the fourth day, he comes in before her first meal. He hands her clothing, it’s similar to the clothing she wore when she came down to earth.

He waited in the hall as she changed. When she opened her door, she noticed Monty’s room was empty. 

They walked silently through the halls, twisting and turning around, Clarke didn’t bother looking around, she was leaving. She didn’t care anymore. 

When they reached the end of one the hallways, he turns to her. 

“A piece of advice, Clarke, leave this area and find another. Take whoever is with you and forget us, forget about the dead you buried here. The grounders around here are still angry, they don’t forgive easily,” he says.

Clarke nods, “I will, I don’t think I could stay here anyway.”  
She never told him about Bellamy, but she thinks he knows anyway. 

He nods, “It’s too bad that you are leaving, you could have been useful here.”

He looks around the hallway for a second before leaning toward her, he whispers, “I’ll tell you a secret, Clarke, we needed you more than you needed us.”

She doesn’t ask what he means, she already knows.

-

23\. 

That’s all the people who decided to leave Mount Weather with her. Raven, Monty, Jasper and Miller are there. 

23\. 

She tries not to think of the significance of that number.

-

Clarke thinks about which way they should go. 

She thinks about going east, like they planned before the grounder fight. But part of her wants to forget all about Bellamy and her life before Mount Weather. Actually a large part of her wants to forget about everything that happened before Mount Weather. 

She remembers her father telling her about the old city called New York, she remembers him telling her about how the buildings were so high, they touched the clouds above. 

She remembers how beautiful the pictures were, and how people used to flock to that city. 

So she decides that they will go there, they will go north. 

New York, the city that never slept. 

-

She starts to dream about Bellamy.

She dreams about when they first met, she dreams of the last moment she saw him. 

She dreams about kissing him. 

Her dreams haunt her when she is awake, she has trouble focusing on things. 

Monty has noticed, he doesn’t comment on it though.

She knows that Monty has talked to Jasper about it, she knows that Monty has probably figured out that Bellamy was her soulmate. 

-

They walk most of the day, Clarke makes sure that they have enough water and food.

Miller has made a couple of weapons and Raven helps track animals. 

They have been walking for about a week when Raven comes to her.

Night has just fallen, and they have made camp for the night.

Clarke is sitting by the fire, she is lost in thought. 

“Clarke,” Raven whispers, “I think we might have a problem.” 

Clarke looks at Raven. Raven’s eyes are wide, “What is it?” Clarke whispers back.

“I think we have someone following us,” she whispers/

Clarke frowns, “How sure are you?”

“Pretty sure, I noticed it first a couple days after we left Mount Weather, I didn’t mention it because I wasn’t sure. But I am now,” she whispers.

Clarke nods, she picks up the knife that Miller made for her, “I am going out looking.”

Raven grabs her arm, “Clarke, are you sure?”

Clarke nods, “I’ll be fine. I’ll be right back.”

Clarke stood up, she walked softly away from the camp and toward the woods.

It was dark, the moon was behind the clouds, Clarke kept a firm grip on her knife. 

She walked for a while before she stopped behind a tree, she heard a branch snap somewhere behind her. Clarke sank to her knees, she waited for a while before she saw a silhouette a few feet in front of her. 

She waited until the person moved closer, than she lunged toward them.

Clarke knocked them to the ground, she tightened her grip on her knife, she pressed the tip of her knife to the person’s throat.

“Shit,” the person said.

The man flipped their position, Clarke began to struggle, she tried to reposition her knife but he knocked it out of her hand. 

“Clarke, Clarke, look at me,” he said. 

The voice was familiar but it couldn’t be, she was just imagining it. She continued to struggle, she tried to lift her leg to kick them but her attacker leaned their body against her lower body. 

“Clarke, it’s me,” he said, “Stop, look at me, please.”

It was the please that got her, she stopped struggling. She looked up and almost started sobbing. 

He was there, he was alive. She reached one of her hands up, he grasped it in his own.

“Bellamy?” she asked softly.

“Yeah, princess. It’s me,” he said. 

Clarke laughed breathlessly, “How is this possible? You were dead, I lost my color vision.”

“I was able to get in one of our foxholes before the fire, Finn wasn’t as lucky though. That’s why you can’t see color anymore.”

Clarke shook her head, “No, I mean, I can still see color, the Mountain Men gave me medicine to fix that, but I thought when they told me-” 

She stops talking when she realizes what she was about to say. Instead she says, “Finn wasn’t what brought color to me.”

He looks down at her and smiles.

-

Clarke brings Bellamy back to their camp. She tells him about the Mountain Men and about Christopher. 

“I think they needed us to repopulate their kind, that’s why they took us,” she says.

“Why didn’t they just take grounders?” Bellamy asked. 

Clarke shrugged, “I don’t know, but I do know that we aren’t welcomed back there.”

“So where are we going Princess?” 

She smiles and says, “New York.”  
She watches as grin seeps across his face.

-

“Why did you follow us for so long?” she asked softly one night.

Bellamy looks away from her, “I was scared, I was scared that you didn’t need me anymore. That somehow, you were better off without me.”

Clarke was silent. 

“I missed you, I thought about you every day,” she said, “When I first woke up, and all I saw was white, I couldn’t breath.”

“I missed you too,” he said softly.

“I am sorry I didn’t tell you about the soulmate thing,” Clarke said, “I thought that maybe we weren’t meant to be. So I kept my mouth shut, I should have told you.”

“I should have told you too, I thought that Finn was your soulmate. I thought that if I told you, I would screw everything up. Maybe if I told you, things would be different,” Bellamy said sadly. 

Clarke grasped his hand, “It doesn’t matter now, we are together. And that is all that matters.”

-

Clarke doesn’t know if what Christopher said was true. Maybe soulmates didn’t exist, maybe it was all just a coincidence. But maybe it wasn’t.

Maybe she was always meant to be with Bellamy. Maybe they were always supposed to find each other. Maybe soulmates weren’t for everyone, but it was for them. 

Clarke liked to think that no matter what, they would have found each other. Bellamy didn’t believe that, he told her more than once if she wasn’t arrested and her father wasn’t floated, they would have never met. If they never came down to earth together, they would have never met.

Clarke supposes he’s right. 

But she doesn’t care. She’s just happy to be with him in this life. She’s happy to love him in this life. It doesn’t matter that they have to keep moving, never settling in one place.

Life goes on, and so do they.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg i loved writing this. i love soulmate au's.
> 
> i have been in such a writing slump but this finally got me out of it. I am working on two other works; a divergent au and a second part to my story 'somethings you can't go back too'.
> 
> please comment, review, and kudos. I love reading your comments, they really inspire me!


End file.
